


Strongly, Wrongly, Vainly

by Lessandra



Category: Jack the Giant Slayer (2013)
Genre: Character Development, EWP - Emotions Without Plot, Friends to Lovers, Headcanon Is My Bitch, Internalized Homophobia, I’m unstoppable, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Slow Build, drama is actually my middle name, saw this pairing in the trailer, shouldn’t be allowed near fanfiction i come up with too much adorable headcanon, slow-building romance, took a level in drama (the author and the fic both), trash queen of small fandoms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-13
Updated: 2014-08-13
Packaged: 2018-02-12 23:12:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2128023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lessandra/pseuds/Lessandra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The city adores Jack: people love stories like him—a commoner turned gentry. But no amount of gold and wealth can make his blood blue enough for him to marry the princess.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strongly, Wrongly, Vainly

**Author's Note:**

> I think I picked up on the potential of this pairing back when the trailer first came out. :3 The movie, in a nutshell, did nothing to disprove my take on things.
> 
> In truth, I have a lot of issues with it. Firstly, as a literature and mythology nut I am deeply aware of all the mythological subtext to most fairy-tales, and I mourn the loss of any deeper meaning to this movie. Secondly, while I get that the movie is kid-oriented, but at times it is too ridiculous and childish. You can make kid-friendly movies and still make them sufficiently interesting for adults to watch without making it facepalm-worthy.
> 
> Anyhow, this is much more of a drama than the original source, because have you met me. Dedicated to my lovely friend who shared my befuddlement at what was being written in this fandom and wanted something else out of it. I aim to please.

_“The true secret of being a hero lies in knowing the order of things._  
_The swineherd cannot already be wed to the princess when he embarks on his adventures._  
_Things must happen when it is time for them to happen._  
_The happy ending cannot come in the middle of the story.”_  
—from **The Last Unicorn** , by Peter S. Beagle, _Chapter XIII_

#  **~I~**

 

Two weeks after the beanstalk is cut down, people are working to clear the streets of Cloister of the debris that once made the very walls of their city. The giants have been sent back to their abode in Gantua and the crown lies safe under the Guard’s protection, but the fear lingers. It is in the sight of the ruins of the once mighty citadel, in the windows kept lit all through the night. Work is all anyone can do to forget.

People are hasty to make new plans for the future, to put the battle behind them as swiftly as they can. After all, it has not been an exhausting war where one loses all hope: Elmont admits to having succumbed to a brief moment of faint-heartedness where he thought nothing would avail them. But they have been victorious; and now there are plans to be made.

Jack is at the centre of many of those plans—and he is entirely unprepared for what is about to swallow him. Stepping into the life of a court he has been waiting for something glorious and noble like in his ballads and fanciful tales. The intricate (and back-stabbing) reality of it promises to bury him.

Elmont is somewhat surprised at the ready welcome they have for Jack. He has been expecting more resistance—the nobility is rarely generous, even when extremely grateful. But the return of the giants appears to have instilled in them a singular sort of reverence towards the boy hero, whose name is now being hailed across the land. They permit—no, _want_ him to stay, and cheer for his success, and the city adores him for it: people do love stories like him—a commoner turned gentry.

But no amount of gold and wealth can make his blood blue enough for him to marry the princess.

 

***

 

_King Brahmwell is wearing a frown of disapproving concern on his face: because here stands a boy, a peasant, who presumes to put a crown on his forehead and march before the king himself._

_Elmont is hard-pressed to feel anything but relief. He knows Jack is not doing it out of the avarice that possessed Roderick. He’s doing it because finally he is the hero of his own story. It is his adventure and his triumph, and the crown is his weapon and shield but not a regalia. He will never regard it that way; he will never regard himself that way._

_Isabelle stands beside him, clad in molten gold, and slides her palm into his—it is **her** story as well. Their conjoined hands are a victory over this peril, and the sight of them together will define the times that are to come: when noblemen and poor folk alike will be working shoulder to shoulder._

_Idly, Elmont ponders if the alliance would reach further than an image. If Isabelle will get her wish to be wed for love._

_“Is this truly wise, daughter?” Brahmwell asks her, pointing to the glowing circlet on Jack’s head, when she finally releases the boy’s hand and steps into her father’s embrace. “He’s a_ farmer _, not born to bear the crown.”_

_“He’s the Giant Slayer,” she responds, like it explains everything. “Who else but him has the right?”_

 

***

 

“Isabelle expects you to stay at court. You will be ill-fit for a life here,” he tells Jack one day, apropos of nothing, as they are working side by side on clearing the inner courtyard of the palace.

Jack presents a stark difference, even from the lowly pages, because for all his new and rich clothes he is used to hard labour and doesn’t shy away from hauling stones.

He doesn’t know how to carry himself any different, and amidst all those grateful to him there are already poignant tongues who would laugh at the boy’s origins. Their remarks do not exert any embarrassment on Jack’s part: he knows exactly who and what he is and doesn’t find his roots belittling. Their ridicule earn them nothing but his amused curiosity—he _genuinely_ cannot comprehend the humour of where he was born.

“Is that your way of warning me away?” Jack asks with a wry smile, and it is a fair accusation since Elmont has already done so.

“Not precisely,” he responds, unabashed, and gives those who gawk at them, a knight and a peasant working together as equals, a peeved stare. “I merely advise you to think on the role you ought to employ at the court.”

Jack traces his stare and his shoulders hunch. “I know I don’t belong here,” he says. “But I reckon I should be simply glad I was offered a place to stay at all. My house is gone, and it wasn’t until the evening after we turned away the giants that I realized I have nowhere to sleep anymore,” he tightens his lips. Jack’s Uncle still hasn’t been heard from—a fact that Elmont isn’t too perturbed about, having heard of the man quite enough from Jack’s stingy comments to form an unflattering opinion. “All I have left is my horse.”

“And the friendship of the princess.”

“There’s that,” Jack concurs with an embarrassed smile.

Elmont goes to the basin and splashes water on himself generously, not a care in him for the state of his clothes. It is unbearable to work in this heat. He wets a cloth and presses to the back of his hair. As he turns, Jack regards him with a carefully shielded expression that Elmont cannot quite read.

“You do not seem too concerned with propriety yourself,” he says.

Elmont throws a glance behind himself. Some of the “nobler” attendants appear quite shocked, regarding his attire as something scandalous.

“I can allow myself some leniency,” he disregards them. “I am not a pompous buffoon as they are, I am a Captain of the Guard.”

“But you _are_ a nobleman,” Jack says, somewhat wistfully. Elmont takes it as a sign of his pointless pining after Isabelle and finds nothing to say to reassure him.

Over the next few days Elmont doesn’t pry into Jack’s head and entertains him with stories of his life as part of the King’s Company. Sometimes the memory of the people he’s lost in the past few days puts him into a melancholy disposition; other times it’s Jack who adopts it.

“Have you chosen a boon to ask of the King yet?” Elmont questions him eventually, and Jack looks uncomfortable, almost guilty.

“I don’t think I know how to choose, exactly. I’ve never made plans, never had the luxury to. It’s an important decision, and I have never had the foresight to make a good one in my life, as such things go.”

Elmont suspects it to be another fool’s notion instilled into him by his Uncle, and the thought riles him. It produces an unexpected outburst in him, as he finds himself saying without any deep pondering, “Choose this,” and points at the insignia he has gifted Jack at the top of the beanstalk. “Become a knight under myself.”

Jack’s fingers squeeze around the brand. “ _What?_ ” he echoes with incredulity.

In all honesty, Elmont is surprised at himself as well. It doesn’t become apparent to him until now, but with his slander of the court and tales of knightly life he has been seducing Jack to be a knight under his command. He would not admit it to either Isabelle or the King, however, and least of all to himself.

“I think it shall be the best fit for you. It is hard work, just as you’re used to, and it keeps you close to the court still.”

“You aren’t joking, are you?” Jack demands and seems unexpectedly edgy about it. Elmont cannot discern if Jack thinks it a preposterous offer, or not.

“Why would I be joking?” he asks impatiently. “You have proved your merit to me. You protected the princess. I would ask nothing less of myself.”

Jack seems shaken, his expression wavering between delight and anxiety. “My father…” he begins and has to take a breath to fight the unbidden tightness in his voice. “My father has told me of the knights of Cloister all my life,” he recalls. “So much that I told him how I want to be one when I grow up,” he meets Elmont’s eyes challengingly, expecting to be ridiculed. Elmont says nothing and meets Jack’s eyes earnestly, waiting for the end of this confession; Jack clears his throat uncomfortably under the weight of his stare. “What he told me was that the knights all must be born of noble blood. And—well—and that there’s not much in ours but dirt and sweat,” he finishes with a wry grimace, twisting his mouth to one side unhappily.

He stares at Jack silently, and the boy seems almost heartbroken about what he has just said. Elmont doesn’t realize it yet, but to Jack he is everything he ever strived to be. A true _hero_.

Growing up, Jack dreams of silver and black, moulding it with fantasies of going into battle alongside the King’s Company. He has imaginary jousts in the dirt of the fields—a fancy he is happy to share with other boys for a time, but some never have the courage of mind to even pretend to be knights and others are quick to grow out of this foolish fancy.

Jack never so wizens up. By the time they meet, he is eighteen and still a dreamer, and he is alone in it.

In his head, Jack writes stories. Of valiant men cursed with misfortune from birth—otherwise, well, they’re not true heroes, not without overcoming their woes and perils—who must shape their destinies, attain their knighthoods and defeat the villains that oppose them. If those valiant men happen to be a little over six feet tall and possess unruly brown hair and blue eyes, if he imagines them with wide sharp cheekbones and thin chins—well, that’s a small thing to take comfort in for a farm boy.

Elmont doesn’t know all these buried things. But what he senses from Jack’s simple words is a whole lot of loneliness and a belief that he was never good enough, and he will not stand for it. Jack is most certainly good enough for him.

“Ask for this boon,” is all he says, because he’s not a man to whom words come easy and he doesn’t have any for this occasion that weighs heavily on his tongue. “You shall have it,” he promises.

 

***

 

_The first time they meet, Elmont thinks Jack nothing more than another dim-witted fool, entertainingly asinine in all his shortcomings. Slow to realize his own folly, he kneels in rushed clumsy panic, tall and uncomfortable in his own skin. Elmont sheathes his sword with amusement, finding in the boy’s comical embarrassment a laugh for the day, and such is the beginning of their story._

_The second time, Elmont is loath to take him with, but by a royal command he must. He cannot for the love of him imagine what use Roderick thinks he can make of his presence: the boy appears to Elmont a valueless hindrance, so pitifully thrilled to be remembered by the King’s knights at all. He seems to have just enough sense in his head to realize he is unwanted, but not enough to abstain from trying to prove his mettle._

_“You must think me an utter fool,” he says to his knees, bending and panting heavily after a near fall. Elmont watches him with mild exasperation: he is surprised the boy had the strength to climb this far at all. “I can do this, though. I swear I can.”_

_“I don’t make up my mind about people until I go into battle with them,” Elmont replies with cold superiority, his words a reassurance but his tone a snub._

_He lies, too. Truth is, he picks Jack for a sort of a village idiot: a big obliging simpleton, dumbstruck at the sight of the princess._

_It softened him that first time, the way he looked at her with_ _respectful devotion—it is_ _always preferable to see loyalty and love in the eyes of Isabelle’s future subjects, than any number of other emotions that objectify her into something she’s not, never going to be, not for them. But as they climb the beanstalk he finds it to be nothing more than an encumbrance: a peasant who is presuming to attempt to win the princess’s heart. Elmont can see all such fairy stories coming alive in Jack’s eyes and thinks sardonically that the boy shall be direly disappointed._

 

***

 

To make a commoner a royal knight is an unheard-of generosity, yet the King is only happy to grant the city’s hero his chosen boon—anything to keep him from getting notions about courting his daughter. If Isabelle is disappointed Jack hasn’t asked for her hand, she doesn’t show it. If Jack is harbouring hope of winning the King’s benevolence by knightly deeds before asking, he doesn’t show it either.

“I dub thee Ser Knight, a royal guard of Cloister, companion to the King.”

Jack is right: he is not a proper knight material. He is no high-born nobleman, no magically assisted traveller of legends who comes to court wrapped in mystery and wins the heart of his chosen lady.

Jack is a farm boy. But he’s got a heart of a knight.

 

***

 

_The journey back towards the beanstalk is an easy one. It is a long distance and their pace has to be swift, to be sure, and the nature here is wild, strange to them, so Elmont has to overcome certain parts with strikes of his sword, but the giants do not pursue them, nor any wicked traps block their path._

_Elmont finds himself minding Jack as much as he minds Isabelle, looking over at the two of them as often as he looks at the trees surrounding them to check that the giants are not in pursuit. From what he overhears, Jack is carrying out a purposeless clumsy conversation about trifles, telling silly stories about some peasants like it is the most fascinating subject in the world, or sharing the adventure tales he has read as a boy and that Isabelle has read herself in plentiful. It underlines bitterly the gap that divides him: she is entertained by him like she would by any from the world that her father has always forbidden her to see, but his place is not to love a princess. He is still but a farmer._

_As the night falls and they stop to find shelter to sleep, Elmont ties together a makeshift cross and digs a small grave in memory of his friend. There is no body to bury, but he has cut the insignia of the Company from Crawe’s armour. It is all he can bury now. Silently, he commends his soul to God._

_He takes first watch and spends it by the sad and empty grave that is hardly even deserving to be dubbed a resting place. He misses Crawe direly, his uncouth horrible jokes and topics that never ranged further than good food and plucky women. Perfectly happy to have nothing but an appreciative ear in his friend who had no particular interest in either subject. It was an odd friendship, but a friendship nonetheless, a friendship that saw many a battle._

_He spends some time carving Crawe’s name into the cross, so the grave doesn’t go unmarked, even though no one will see it. He finds it a good resting place in spite of everything—the closest anyone has tread to Heaven, that is for certain._

_As Elmont leaves his vigil by the empty grave, he is prepared to keep watch for the remainder of the night without bothering Isabelle or her farmboy. However he finds Jack far from asleep. He is sitting up against a rock, legs crossed, looking up into the sky. Elmont pauses, taking in the expression on the boy’s face—too serious in contrast to what Elmont has come to expect from him._

_“What’s eating you?” he asks, and his voice, too loud amidst the peaceful silence, startles Jack. His posture first tenses, then eases a little, but not by much._

_“Nothing. I’m just… exhausted,” Jack looks surprised at the development. He looks up at Elmont with a bashful smile. “I think I’m too tired to sleep.” He shakes his head. “In the stories it’s always so_ easy _, the **adventuring** part.”_

_Elmont snorts at his foolishness. “I wouldn’t know. It’s a common day’s work for me.”_

_Jack grins. “So I imagine, if the princess runs away as many times a week as she claims.”_

_“More,” Elmont sighs, and Jack laughs at his deadpan resignation._

_With a soft sigh he finally relaxes, sprawling himself across the edgy stones, unconcerned with how uncomfortable they are. “They’re so much closer from up here,” he breathes out, and he means the stars._

_“I used to run away from my uncle’s hovel through the window when he had his nasty nights,” he states matter-of-factly. “I lay there in the field amidst the high corn and watched the stars and imagined what the Twins are conversing about, and how the noble knight is slaying a Lion to save his lady.”_

_He doesn’t even know their names, but in his eyes is a hungry longing for the night sky that leaves something loose and unwanted in Elmont’s chest._

_“I once found a white stone that left chalk-like marks instead of scratches and I tried to draw the stars on my bedroom wall and the ceiling. My uncle gave me such a trashing for that,” Jack laughs candidly, and Elmont is silent, seeing no humour in the fact that the memory of his own childish tomfoolery is made into a personal embarrassment for him._

_“What happened to your parents, then?”_

_Jack’s eyes squint a little, hardening, as he continues to watch the stars. “There was a plague some years back that you might recall. Isabelle had to be eight or nine.”_

_“Aye.” Elmont does indeed remember. For two entire months Isabelle had to remain in the palace, her usual playmates absent as everyone remained in the safety and cleanness of their homes, and she bore the weight of such a confinement heavily. Elmont did his best to keep her occupied, and she did not complain because every day Roderick, then a young attendant under the Lord Provost, took a special pleasure in reporting the latest death toll._

_“It took away my father. And he raised me alone because I never did know my mother.” Which meant she died in child-birth—a common tragedy of life, especially among the poorer folk._

_“I’m sorry,” Elmont says, and he **is**. Jack speaks of his childhood as of something ordinary and to be expected, but his words are a testament to a life more sorrowful than glad. Elmont finds himself momentarily amazed the boy has turned out so fine despite the many tragedies that has struck him._

_They spend some time in silence, and studying the horizon Elmont catches sight of the beanstalk. The night over their heads serves to remind him of the company of men he had with him when they first climbed. And now, he is alone._

_“What’s eating you?” Jack invades his thoughts, mirroring Elmont’s own inquiry perceptively._

_“My men,” he says after a sombre pause. Jack’s face falls and he gives a grim nod._

_“I’m sure I cannot begin to understand your loss. But I’m sorry, for what little it’s worth.”_

_“It’s not about the loss. It’s the failure. I failed them. And I fear I will fail in my duty to protect Isabelle. I fear I cannot do it on my own, and it has all been for nothing.”_

_Jack looks at him with sympathy. “You’re not alone,” he says. “She is capable, and from what I can understand, she considers you a friend. She will not make it harder on you; you have her support.” Clumsily, he touches Elmont’s hand. “You have mine.”_

_Elmont stares blandly at the farm boy’s hand on top of his own until it retreats skittishly. “I know you think I’m a child, undeserving of your consideration or respect—”_

_“No.”_

_Jack looks up at him, startled and confused, unsure what Elmont is objecting to._

_“I am a warrior and a knight. When you volunteered, I thought of you only in terms of how you would derange my rescue of Isabelle and, I admit, I thought very little.”_

_“I know.” Jack hunches, readying himself for sharper words._

_“I thought wrong. You have my respect. I guess it bears saying out loud.” His words lack finesse, but Jack’s lips stretch into a flattered smile all the same._

_“I’m glad,” he answers, equally simple and curt._

 

***

 

Elmont’s opinion of Jack has little cause to change from the initial impression he forms unless it is for the worst. And it doesn’t, per se: he still thinks the boy callow and reckless and naïve. He just no longer thinks it a flaw. It’s who he is—Jack the Giant Slayer—with all the growing pains of his blundering youth.

Elmont recognizes the need that drives Jack easily: he has seen it in his rebellious charge often enough, that yearning for _adventure_. Jack wants to share stories, to absorb them, to be a _part_ of them. He fears danger only when it is staring him in the face—and maybe not even then. He is a child in a body of a young man who is supposed to have outgrown such fancies.

He wears a title now. People look up to him—they would have even if he remained a farmer, because he still ruled over their hearts. He is shockingly not half-bad in dealing with the lot: for all his peasant plainness the boy is good with people. It is a saving grace, of sorts.

Meanwhile, Elmont takes up to teaching him what he can. To stand his ground—both in a swordfight and at court. To fight back, just as hard and as devious as one’s opponent. Jack doesn’t look like he will ever get a hand of the courtly games with any passable finesse, but takes to swordsmanship like he was born for it and enthuses for the training gladly until both of theirs limbs are sore and stiff.

One such afternoon, as they’re taking a break after a bout, Elmont finds them having a distinguished audience: the King has been observing them. He nods at Elmont, corners of his mouth slightly upturned. It is an unexpected sight—he cannot recall a previous occasion on which the King would act so undignified as to grace the common folk with his presence. Wiping his face with a towel Elmont makes his way to his side.

“Your Majesty,” he nods respectfully.

The King’s eyes are trained on Jack. “You’re rather invested in the boy, aren’t you,” he notices in an off-hand manner. It is not a question.

Elmont looks back to Jack, finds him leaning against the stall, hair damp with sweat, drinking from his flask greedily. For a second he watches his throat work as he drinks, and it is almost indecent. But the King has not come alone.

They watch Jack approach the princess, awkward gestures of his arms being a glaring substitute for the words they don’t hear but what must be a stumbling mess of them. The King frowns momentarily in stern suspicion, but when he looks at Elmont, he wears a look of insouciance—one Elmont doesn’t trust, having seen it enough times in his daughter, although in Isabelle it usually means hidden mischief.

Brahmwell has grown loose, now that there is no more sceptres in his hands, no more magnanimous ermine mantles, nor even a castle to speak of. In fact, there is a certain detachment to his tone lately that rather worries Elmont than gladdens.

He wants to ask if there is something the King might wish to unburden himself of. Some notion to share with his knight. He dares not and instead demurs flatly, “I am not getting invested in anything.”

The King’s face says that he thinks Elmont is lying to him. That he _knows_ he’s lying.

“He is weak,” he says with a look of doubt. “Should I have not granted him the favour he asked for? Will he dishonour your knightly brotherhood, Elmont?” The question sounds almost diffident, like the King might be regretting his decision, which takes Elmont aback. It is a scandalous notion, for the kings are not meant for regrets.

“No, sire,” Elmont assures him ardently and allows himself to rest a hand on the kingly shoulder. “I will make a fine champion out of him.”

 

***

 

_Standing on the edge of Gantua, taking respite in a momentary relief, Elmont takes in the sight he has never dreamt of perceiving: his beloved kingdom spread before him from a bird’s view. He looks upon the spiels frosted with clouds and he knows that in order to protect it he must remain behind._

_Looking back at his companions, he remembers with a jolt that they are hardly equipped to make the trip back on their own. Elmont realizes he has made the mistake of inwardly thinking of Jack as he would have of a new shield-brother, a fresh recruit, voice brittle with excitement. But even a new recruit, no matter how green, would have possessed swordsmanship enough to be put in charge of protecting the princess. Jack has no skill to flaunt—but he has cunning that slays him two giants. And Elmont’s resolve remains unchanged._

_“I’m not going anywhere without that crown.”_

_Charmingly clumsy in his gesture, Jack unstraps his makeshift girdle of leather and offers his small needle of a dagger to Elmont, made only smaller by the width of Jack’s palm._

_Elmont stares at the offering with something tightening in his chest. They both know that against the giants it will not avail him._

_“Thank you,” he says seriously and accepts it nonetheless._

_“You look after her, Jack,” Elmont stares at him meaningfully. “Protect the princess. You’re the only one who can now.”_

_Jack lowers his head and mumbles softly, “It will be my honour.”_

_Elmont squints his eyes crossly, because **of course** it will be: the boy’s so obviously smitten. It is worrisome and upsetting to a degree, but it is not the problem of this day. Right now it is Jack’s most potent weapon._

_He is taken off guard when Jack takes one step closer, putting a hand on his shoulder—a pressure Elmont can barely feel through his suit of armour. “You’re not lying to us, are you? You are coming back. Aren’t you?”_

_Yielding to the gravity of the moment Elmont tears off the brand of the King’s Company with the letters ‘BR’—‘Brahmwell Regnum’—inscribed on it and hands it to the boy. The mark of his noble deeds, and Jack accepts it as a sign of respect, of **trust** , with utmost reverie._

_Isabelle catches his eyes and raises her eyebrows with a hint of old mischief, implying something else entirely._

_The gift is a promise, too: much like a token a dame bestows upon her chosen champion, or a knight onto his lady before embarking on a perilous journey. Elmont doesn’t linger on this interpretation because it is preposterous for him to have meant it. Isabelle, however, has lived at court all her life, and she knows better. Knows **him**. And perhaps he has meant it after all._

 

 

 

 

#  **~II~**

 

Watching young recruits under him go through the pains of love for the first time, their awkward flirtations and clumsy yet endearing attempts to capture each other’s eye is a nostalgic sort of amusement. Elmont remembers how it goes, when the talk of love finally becomes determination you act upon. He remembers the way it appeared to him that the sun itself shifted over his first love’s face when they smiled.

Being in love and lying in a lover’s eternal embrace, murmuring fondly of joy. The promise of _‘always’_ sighed into his ear, and against his chest—feeling the beatings of another’s heart. He was young, a boy, and it didn’t seem possible it wouldn’t last.

Everything about young love is newness. Watching how your lover walks, shifts, how they move their head. Every old thing is suddenly a discovery through your watching of another. That is how Jack’s with Isabelle, and _that_ is far from amusing. Hanging on her every word, eyes grasping at her like a lodestone the moment she enters the room—and the first thing she does is searches him out as well.

“What if he were to ask for my hand in marriage?” Isabelle demands from her father the first week after their victory over the giants. Her father has been unusually mellow this entire time, but it has him riled up immediately, and there is a lengthy argument filled with _‘you’re of a royal bloodline’_ , and _‘he’s a swineherd’_ , and a lot of other _‘never’s_ , and still Isabelle stands her ground.

But Jack never does ask.

 

***

 

_Isabelle’s too young to even comprehend the word ‘betrothal’. Finding Elmont in a gloomy disposition, she puts her willowy arms around him and says, “You are just afraid I shall marry and leave to have my adventures, and you will be all alone.”_

_He smiles at that, in spite of his concerns. “You are not far from the truth, Your Highness.” He **is** afraid she will marry, that is certain._

_Not a year ago there was not such a name as Roderick known at court. Because Roderick was an unseen attendant to one of the King’s noble subjects. Now he has Brahmwell’s ear, and the King—once a shrewd man who should have seen through his deceitful nature—delegates more and more of his cares to him._

_A monarch’s decision isn’t meant to be examined closely or brought under any consternation. And yet Elmont finds himself speaking out against this development. He understands that the King grows more and more afraid for the well-being of his only precious treasure. But spidery men such as Roderick are hardly the answer. Roderick circumvents his intrusion, cutting his intention down at its very root._

_“I understand it that you have raised some concerns to the King about me, Ser Elmont,” he stops him in one of the hallways the next day, baring his teeth in not quite a sneer. “That cannot_ possibly _be true, for I cannot imagine you shall risk me revealing your secrets.”_

 _“You don’t know any of my secrets,_ Lord _Roderick,” Elmont replies angrily, and the title could not have been spoken with more contempt._

_“I didn’t know them yesterday,” he acquiesces. “But I do today. You think the King will be happy to learn of his Knight-Captain’s **unholy** tastes?”_

_Something in Elmont’s shrivels up in terror, because no, he doesn’t think this will end well for him at all. “He will not believe you,” he speaks out, and hopes his sudden panic has not shown in his face._

_“Will you risk him finding out?” Roderick leers and leaves him with a mockery of a bow. Elmont keeps his expression politely neutral. Risk it, he shall not, but on that day—although it be many years before Isabelle ascends to the throne—she becomes his Queen above her father in his heart. He will protect her always, consequences be damned._

 

***

 

With a loud clatter against the stones of the courtyard Jack’s sword flies out of his hands. He’s wincing, nursing his wrist. Elmont keeps his sword trained on Jack’s throat, feeling particularly impassioned in his duelling today. Jack stares at him with amicable confusion.

“Shall I pick up the sword?” he asks reluctantly.

“You and Isabelle,” Elmont states abruptly, not lowering his sword still, and Jack who has begun to bend stands upright again rigidly, meeting his eyes in alarm, “I know I’ve said before you shouldn’t deem to try and impress the princess. I was mistaken and you _have_ impressed her, and you are worthy of her respect.” He finally lowers his blade and sets it against the stones. “But do not let your hopes soar. The King will never stand for it. He has made it abundantly clear.” He looks at Jack and adds, “I’m sorry,” and it rolls off oddly from his tongue because he _is_ sorry for Jack’s wounded heart, but in a petty self-centred way he’s also _not_.

Jack turns away, bothered, like he doesn’t want to hear it. “You don’t have to worry about that,” he replies as he goes to pick up his weapon, and his words do not sound convincing in the slightest. “I do not believe I love her any more than you love her.”

“I **_do_** worry,” Elmont retorts indignantly. “And I may love her as my charge and my future sovereign, but I have never deemed to put my _lips_ on her person!” Elmont looks at Jack with a mixture of anger and imploration. “Nothing can happen between you.”

Jack raises his head to meet his eyes. They are bright angry morning blue. “Don’t you think I know that? My place?” He waves his hand towards the walls of the city. “The Giant Slayer, that is what _they_ call me, those people out there, the one I grew up with. Here, I will always be the Farmboy Knight.”

And that’s not what he’s saying at all, never wanted to be just another person to tell Jack he’s not good enough. But there is a certain order to the world. “She’s the _princess_ , Jack,” he says quietly. “She’s just in a different tier altogether.”

“She’s not the only one,” Jack bows his head and it seems self-disparaging somehow.

“No,” Elmont responds vehemently, enough to surprise Jack into being slightly thrown off. Elmont hesitates, because he is not a tactile person, and puts his hand on Jack’s shoulder in a gesture of reassuring camaraderie. “I am positive you have caught the eye of many a noble lady. How could you not? One of them shall be the one to have your heart, of that I have no doubt.”

“That is not the point!” Jack’s shoulder dips, and Elmont retracts his hand immediately. Jack seems disappointed by it.

“What is your point, then?” Elmont asks demurely.

“I have this…” Jack clutches at the empty air in front of his chest, like trying to gather his emotions into a fist and examine them. “Anger. I _saved_ her. That’s why _I’m_ the hero. And she’s the princess, so _of course_ I’m supposed to love her! Why isn’t that the story?”

Elmont looks at him, tongue glued to the palate, and he’s lost for a good answer, wretchedly helpless in his silence. Jack takes a deep breath that seems gratingly loud and releases his fist from his chest, dipping his head and averting his eyes.

“It doesn’t matter, anyhow. In spite of what both of you think I know my place. I do not have any secret plan to wed her.” To Elmont’s surprise, there isn’t any spite or frustration behind the words.

“Truly?” He has to confess he hasn’t been expecting that. “Is that the truth, Jack?” he adds softly. The words are all well and good and noble, but it’s the deeds that will count.

“Marrying her is not the story, apparently.”

“And does she feel the same way?” he narrows his eyes shrewdly, and Jack looks uncertain and mildly shamed, which Elmont deciphers correctly easily enough. “She is pretty insistent on aggravating her father with the topic. And you don’t know her like I do: she doesn’t take a no for an answer and she always gets what she wants.”

Jack looks genuinely surprised to hear that, raising his head to stare at Elmont dubiously. “How can she? She’s a princess. She has even less power over her story than I do.”

Elmont finds there’s not much he can say to it either. Jack is exactly right, and yet Elmont is unprepared to hear the words spoken by him. Still doing him the disfavour of not giving him credit enough. His mistake.

“The love of a lady is not always the point of the hero’s quest,” Jack speaks in a ponderous tone. “Sometimes it is nobler. Sometimes _stranger._ I am—I have… _capitulated_ to that knowledge.”

He doesn’t sound happy, and Elmont thinks he should pull back from the conversation. Thinks that the boy is so very young and foolish and has a penchant for unnecessary tragedy in his life—like it will add more _worth_ to it. He thinks Jack is raw and passionate, and he will not stay his course.

“Do you promise? Can you promise me that?” he finds himself asking in spite of all that.

Jack doesn’t look affronted but is puzzled and curious instead. “I can. I do,” he says with a cautious nod, his eyes never leaving Elmont’s. “I promise.” He doesn’t argue, and Elmont isn’t sure he believes such an easily-made vow. But that’s all he can have, and it will have to be good enough.

 

***

 

_“You’re a tenacious one, aren’t you?” Crawe notes, pleased. “I could tell right away.”_

_Elmont throws him a pointed glance, surprised and annoyed at his friend’s encouraging of the boy and his pitiful pauper’s quest. He certainly sees nothing remotely hinting that Jack is capable._

_“I have been reading about knights all my life,” the boy confesses eagerly, not minding that his breath is coming out strained and uneven from the climb. “I may not have what it needs to be one. But I’ll do my best to help. I can do the right thing.” His eyes, as he looks at Elmont, are suspiciously fervid. “I’d be glad to lay my life for a right cause. Same as your men have.”_

_“No,” Elmont interrupts him, bristling, and looks down at the boy with distaste. “Not the same as them.” Because those are his friends, and he is but a boot-licking boy in love with a princess who dares put himself on the same line with those better and nobler than he. He’s got a lot of nerve._

 

***

 

By the middle of the autumn a certain raggedness has not left Cloister completely, and the King calls for festivities to let the people’s mind wander on topics more pleasant than the constant need for repair of their lives.

In the castle such celebration will involve a dance and Jack receives the news with abject horror. Isabelle immediately tasks herself with teaching him the steps and turns, and quickly proves to be horrendous at it, just about rolling with laughter at every one of Jack’s stiff awkward mistakes. She doesn’t mean it as an offense, naturally, but it does impede the learning process.

“He is impossible,” Isabelle complains to Elmont, coming to stand by his shoulder as they both observe Jack critically. “No sense of rhythm at all.”

“I don’t know,” Elmont says doubtfully. “I find he has an excellent sense of rhythm when we duel.”

“And I suppose you think you shall do better?” she challenges him haughtily.

Elmont arches an eyebrow. “I reckon I have done a good enough job with you, young lady,” he reminds her.

Jack stares openly. “ _You_ have taught Isabelle to dance?” Elmont nods, and Jack throws his head back with a dramatic groan. “Then why have I been subjected to this _torture_? Couldn’t you have said something from the start?”

Isabelle giggles into her fist, and Elmont chuckles. “It was much too amusing to interrupt,” he deadpans.

“Ah, well then. I’m glad I’m a source of someone’s amusement. Clearly, there’s not enough of that in my life.”

Determined, Elmont walks up to him and pauses, momentarily caught off guard. He has never noticed it before, it didn’t matter during swordplay, but Jack is a whole lot taller than him, almost a full head. The thought sends a tingling jolt through his body, and he takes a deep breath to collect his thoughts.

“Wait,” Jack says, looking down at him. “How are you gonna teach me? I am not a maid.”

Elmont clears his throat, regaining his composure. “I did teach Isabelle,” he says. “A job that required me to learn each part to the dances in the end—that she could both mirror me and be partnered with me.”

Jack looks uncertain and slightly flustered. “Wouldn’t you mind, though?”

“From what I remember,” Isabelle interjects with a teasing smirk, “Elmont much prefers the ladies’ part.”

The observation makes Jack snort, bemused still, and Elmont rolls his eyes at the both of them.

In the end, it is much like their lessons of swordsmanship. And Jack does find his rhythm. Elmont tries his best to detach himself from the task, to think of Jack in terms he her always applied to him: loyal; honourable; a good man; a worthy companion.

But he cannot help take note of other things, too. Of wide warm hands that used to plough fields and now wield swords with him. Of a voice hoarse with nerves, of the light in his eyes that Elmont can see now that he’s standing close enough. How Jack carries himself with diffidence still, like he isn’t sure why he’s wanted here even now.

Afterwards he watches them laugh together. Isabelle giggles, still a child, and Jack is truly no better, and Elmont is surprised at his own fondness. Jack’s outer self is polished now, but sometimes, in moments like this, he does something and he is his former farm boy self still. Elmont cannot say how quickly into their acquaintance this little detail stopped bothering him, but he is now looking at it with fondness. Has long since been looking at Jack with that. Only that. More than that.

The thought brings him to a halt, as he examines it with a suspect tightness in his chest. His old mentor has impressed on him one key piece of his wisdom: _‘Friendships are made instantly in the field of battle’._ And so it has happened with them. It is a gradual discovery as they work side by side, day to day, and Elmont watches him, grows accustomed to his strange new brashness so unlike anything he’s familiar with. Contempt turns acceptance, pity turns respect, trust is earned between them atop of Gantua and turns into friendship.

The _other_ thing, though he doesn’t have a name for it—it sort of sprouts wings from there.

 _My God,_ Elmont thinks to himself, shaken, and it shouldn’t be such a surprise—they have been heading towards this for a while now, for weeks, months. _He’s_ been heading, anyway. It still catches him off-guard.

Inside his head he can almost hear his old friend Crawe laughing at him. _You were always so incredibly dense, Elmont,_ he’d say. He would have likely seen it miles coming, and Elmont’s lot is to stumble into his own feelings by chance.

Strange, brash, naïve boy, yes, he thinks as he continues watching him with Isabelle. But he’ll be damned if he isn’t attached.

 

 

 

 

 _“Love dwells not in our will._  
_Nor can I blame thee, though it be my lot_  
_To **strongly, wrongly, vainly** love thee still.”_  
—from **Love and Death** , by Lord Byron

 

#  **~III~**

 

The city and its king are one. Cloister is defended, but it is also devastated, its beautiful face disfigured by giants and their beanstalks. Brahmwell is as cracked open and broken down as his land—which is why in his last months Elmont witnesses him acting so peculiarly, _frighteningly_ loose. His king knows in his heart that the task of rebuilding Cloister shall fall not to himself but to his daughter.

Three months after their victory the city is mourning the King’s passing and welcoming Isabelle’s ascent to the throne.

She is stoic, his girl, like he has always known her. At dinners her eyes are red-rimmed, and her face is paler and thinner and frozen mask-like, but she puts up a brave front. Jack is constantly close to her, and he is not naïve enough anymore to say that it’s okay for her to mourn openly—it’s not, she is a monarch now, and royalty can’t afford to shed tears.

Isabelle carries her grief dwelling deep within her, and they help her, Jack does, and Elmont does—her loyal knights, holding her hands beneath the table, outside of prying eyes. They still remain, a unison—the three friends forged in a fire of a calamity so singular no one else can penetrate it.

It shouldn’t be a surprise but shamefully it is: privately Elmont suspects Isabelle and Jack of growing closer in spite (because) of her father’s protestations, and him left outside of it. He waits now, with apprehension, that she shall announce him her Prince-Consort any day. She has, after all, always got her way. And now, although the price for that may have been steep, she possesses all the independence to act as she desires.

Two mornings after the king’s passing Elmont catches Jack leaving her rooms. The sight of it fills him with anger followed with shame that he should feel so strongly on the matter. He is of a mind to stop Jack and have a talk with him, but as he watches the young man he finds him not wearing any secret smile of having a pleasurable secret but a shadow of twisted concern. Something in the shape of it stifles Elmont and he doesn’t step out of the shadows, lets Jack disappear down the staircase. Later he refrains from saying anything on the matter at all.

 

***

 

_Isabelle dreams of dragons and giants and wild beasts, but not in a way that would frighten a little girl. She dreams of slamming her knees into a horse’s sides, of metal clasping her shoulders, the heavy weight of it as comfortable as her father’s ursine embrace, of an army of loyal men that would regard her as a general._

_Elmont remembers one day—she is nine—when she climbs the table in her father’s royal quarters and drags a ceremonial sword from its sheath on the wall. It makes a heavy clanking sound as the tip of it crashes against the table as soon as it’s loose, which is what draws Elmont there in the first place. He finds her as she is trying to lift it above her own height again. The sword is heavy, and she is a tiny creature with spidery arms and legs._

_“Isabelle!” he exclaims, feeling his heart plummet, and she drops the sword in fear. It clatters loudly onto the floor, and she loses her balance. The table rattles, but Elmont is already there, scooping Isabelle into his arms, a bundle of protesting limbs._

_“You scared me!” are the first words out of her mouth, as soon as he sets her down, spoken with earnest accusation._

_“I’m sorry,” are the second, and her voice is breathy and shivery, and she slings her arms around him once again in a tight childish hug._

_He lets out a weary sigh, ruffling her hair, and picks up the sword, sliding it back into its glittering sheath. It’s a small miracle she didn’t get hurt. Elmont passes a hand over his own hair and thinks they will start to turn grey one of these days, what with the scares his charge keeps giving him._

_He turns back, regarding Isabelle with affectionate exasperation, and kneels in front of the girl once again so that she cannot escape his searching eyes. “What were you doing, young lady? You want to get me in trouble?”_

_“No!” she exclaims, horrified, and tugs at his sleeves, causing a shadow of a smirk creep into the corners of his lips—one that Isabelle doesn’t see. Implorations of her minding her own safety have long since stopped having any effect, so he employs other means._

_It has been a year since Isabelle’s mother, Queen Celia, has departed into a better world, and in that time her daughter has grown increasingly wild and independent. In a few years, as a headstrong young woman, she will cause her father many a headache. The King is a hard stone-like figure in her life now—she wants his tenderness and attention, but the grief of losing his wife has impacted Brahmwell too strongly._

_In this absence of parental authority, Elmont finds himself adopting the dead Queen’s role in the young princess’s life, to his own surprise. He is the one to shower her with worry and warmth and pride, he is the person she runs to with discoveries and questions. He is the one to indulge her with fairy tales and funny stories before she goes to sleep._

_She should be playing tag and dress-up and hoodman’s blind with other children of noble families. Should recite poetry, practice curtseys, embroidery and read romance. He has seen her at it, merry and carefree, too. He should be another faceless Lieutenant in her father’s army, tasked with keeping an eye on the princess, dependable and unseen._

_Instead, Isabelle abandons her childhood friends and thrusts herself into the world of writ fancies, and yearns for many unattainable things—for change, for escape, for adventure and freedom, for danger and feeling alive, above all else for her mother. And Elmont watches her lose the softness around her pearly arms as she begs him to practice with a sword. Heart-wrenchingly, he finds himself her only companion, her confidante, her best friend._

 

***

 

The dogs whine sadly at Elmont as he walks into the courtyard—a pack of corsairs, running up to him, licking his fingers. They feel that their home is in mourning and have no comprehension as to why. He sits under the shadow of the apple trees and strokes them soothingly, sinks his hands deep into their coarse fur and just breathes, trying to fight his own grief.

It is here that Jack finds him, stepping out into the courtyard cautiously, unsure if his intrusion would be welcome. Elmont doesn’t lift his head to acknowledge him, but neither does he turn him away, so Jack walks up to him and kneels, petting the dogs as well, saying nothing. He doesn’t have to—Elmont _knows_ Jack shares in his grief.

“Isabelle shall have need of us, I think,” Jack states quietly, almost too afraid to speak. “Who better than us to relate and share in what she’s going through?” His voice is deeply unhappy. Elmont stares at him, unsure what he’s getting at, and Jack says, prompted by his silent incomprehension, “The loss of one’s father?”

Elmont’s heart sinks a little, like Jack’s words hang a stone over it, and he feels a painful tightness in his chest that makes him want to rub over it with his knuckles, like he can squeeze the ache out. He tosses his chin up, squinting at the sun, and gathers his thoughts. Rising to his feet he begins walking the perimeter of the orchard, and Jack follows alongside of him, emanating unease.

“My mother perished during a vicious bout on influenza a long time ago, much like your father,” he divulges finally, his tone careless and as far from the tone of his thoughts as possible. “But my own father still lives.”

Jack sucks in a surprised breath. “Oh, God, Elmont, I am so _sorry_. I assumed—I just thought—you never—I mean, he’s not—”

He fumbles with words, face growing hot with shame, and Elmont chooses carefully what to say next before coming to his help.

“We have not spoken in a long time. It has been many years, in fact.”

“Why?” Jack is incredulous.

Elmont shoots him a sharp look, amused and exasperated at his impertinence all at once. Most people would find it unmannerly to inquire further into someone’s personal affairs, but Jack speaks his mind, lets his curiosity run and doesn’t keep secrets from friends. Sometimes Elmont forgets that.

“He does not approve of my life choices,” he replies after some deliberation.

In his ears the screams of _Foul abomination! Shame of my loins!_ are only too easy to recall, the terrible way his father’s voice reverberated in incensed fury.

“How come?” Jack lays a hand on Elmont’s shoulder, perhaps sensing that the topic is sensitive. Elmont bends his neck, leaning into the weight and warmth of his hand for a second before remembering himself and straightening his back rigidly. “You’re the Captain of the King’s Guard.”

“Our discord has happened long before I became that. I came to Cloister a young squire exactly because of my falling out with my father. He might have approved of my present accomplishments, but at that time all I was to him was a disgrace.”

“And that’s that?” Jack is taken aback. He is still, after all, a person to whom such a tale of woe is unspeakable.

“I _have_ seen him since,” Elmont admits sourly, the memory bringing him no pleasure. “Travelled back to my home city to try and mend things. And another time after that, as part of the King’s Company, escorting him there on one of his royal excursions to the neighbouring boroughs. Didn’t help matters much. In his eyes, I have brought shame to him, and whatever I have accomplished since will never outweigh to him what I haven’t.”

He fears then, for a moment, that Jack will ask after the reason for their discord. He wonders what answer he could possibly give if asked. But there are limits to how impudent Jack allows himself to be and he doesn’t pry any further. Elmont isn’t sure if he feels relief or disappointment.

 

***

 

_It is a wonder his father doesn’t kill him. In that moment of merciless shattering rage he is truly terrifying, and everything inside Elmont clenches in abject dread. His father’s anger is fathomless, illimitable, but even stronger in his face is the look of utter crushing disgrace._

_“I will not stand for this!” he cries. “This will not stand.”_

_His father is torn between wanting to grab him, to shake him, and the sheer disgust at the mere prospect of touching his offspring. Like it shall soil him as well. It makes Elmont sick to his stomach, like he has swallowed a knife and it is cutting his insides into pieces._

_“I did not bear a son so that the flesh of my flesh shall be a catamite to another man’s lechery!”_

_Elmont tries to tell him it is not like that, is not about anything as carnal as that. Tries to tell him his lover is of his age and not an older man who might have taken advantage. He tries to tell his father he’s in love. Does tell him, and that last part finally earns him a blow across his face._

_“Do not spout your profanity, wretch! The Holy Writ calls what you are an abomination, and so I shall call you hence.” The words flood Elmont with hot shame, the worst shame God has put into men. “I shall tell you that no son of mine would dishonour me in this vile manner. And you are a son of mine no longer!”_

_“Father!—”_

_“Away with you, filthy beast. You have no home here.”_

_He bides his servants to throw Elmont out of his house. “Father! Father!” he continues pleading, screeching at the top of his lungs so that his voice may carry through the hallways. If it reaches his father’s ears, it does not reach his heart._

_He is turned away from his house, penniless, possessing nothing. Bereft of his father’s love. He feels empty and robbed and in a confounded daze. All his life, all his plans, turned to nothing. Whatever can he do with himself? Wherever can he go?_

_He spends the evening in his own courtyard, waiting, senselessly, for his father to change his mind. Servants pass him by occasionally but all of them pretend he is not there. A girl from the kitchen passes him scrapes from the evening meal, but doesn’t meet his eyes._

_He spends the night like a beggar, huddled outside of his own walls in the chilling night-air, until the cold becomes too much and he sneaks into the stables and sleeps in the hay, among the animal stench. In the morning he wakes, hoping still that his father will change his mind. It is a futile hope. His father has not asked for him back, and the terror of his erased future comes back two-fold to weigh heavily on him. It finally makes him leave for another place._

_His feet turn him to Aiden’s house without any thought. He does not know where else to seek comfort except in the company of his boyhood friend, the one whose friendship and love has served the cause for this rift in the first place._

_He hides in the shrubbery surrounding his house and waits for them to leave for Mass. Aiden seems to be expecting his visit because he is looking around nervously as soon as he’s out the door, fidgeting and worried. He spots Elmont quickly enough, and Elmont gives him a shy smile._

_Aiden seems to whiten as he tugs his father’s sleeve and tells him something. If Elmont has been expecting something along the lines of, ‘There’s my friend, father, he is need, we should help him,’_ _whatever he says is not it, because the old man’s face contorts in disgust and he summons two servants and gestures towards Elmont harshly. He cannot know what they’re saying, but the man’s fingers suddenly seem talon-like and he shies away onto himself._

_“What are you doing?” he squeaks piteously as the two servants seize him by his forearms. “No, what are you doing?” He’s twisting in their hands and trying to steal a look at the friend who has so readily abandoned him._

_He’s kicking like mad, trying to wrench himself free, but the men’s arms are strong. They drag him away from the eyes of the family, and there, bearing no witness, fists are ploughed into his back, shoving him on hands and knees, where he receives hard kicks of boots under his ribs that make him fall down, be sprawled in the mud like a leaf._

_Someone puts a boot on the back of his head, shoving his face deeper into the muck. “You are not to be seen around this house anymore, scapegrace,” he is told and given a last kick as a further incentive. The men leave, and Elmont continues lying there, breathing and coughing dirt and feeling his bones rattle like they’ve come loose._

_He returns to his house with grim determination. An elderly maid gasps in horror at the sight of him: she has known him since he was a boy and, cast away or not, she feels every bruise he receives like it’s her own. His father is away at Church, and Elmont comes up to his room. Maybe it’s the expression on his face, and maybe they feel sorry for him, but no one stops him._

_He packs two sets of clothes and looks about, saying goodbye to every little thing of his childhood, all the toys, all the favourite artefacts. He enters his father’s study and retrieves a pouch of gold coins and feels unashamed of it. Finally, he goes down to the stables, and saddles a horse._

_He shall never return to this place again._

 

***

 

The funeral is an exceptional event, solemn, respectful, and just the right blend between grandiose and unpretentious.

The day after the burial Isabelle announces she is inviting suit. Jack, as Elmont surmises from the declaration, isn’t expected to vie for her hand at all.

 

***

 

“Honourable guests! People of Cloister,” the herald’s voice carries across the hall. “I give you your Queen.” Isabelle bows to her subjects with an imperious smile and proceeds to greet each envoy as they are announced to her. Watching her, Elmont cannot decide if the ermine-brimmed mantle around her shoulders makes her look regal or simply _too young_.

From his position he sees her hands clenching and unclenching as they lie upon her knees, but he cannot come to her aid, not now. Tonight she is the Queen of Cloister and shouldn’t bring the foreign delegates and suitors’ attention to her familiarity with her Knight-Captain, be he of noble blood or not.

Jack, too, falls under hard scrutiny from all the newly arrived emissaries. They all know the story by now, have heard the bards singing it across the cities—even though at least half of these songs are coated in exaggerated lies. Elmont is pleased that they are sufficiently impressed to witness the legend in the flesh, but it also makes something tighten in his chest: because Jack doesn’t look as the boy Elmont first knew any longer. There is a polished look to him, a pretence of being bred into the court that the neighbouring lords gobble up. They do not see a shadow of something wilder, freer in the back of his eyes, something untamed and coarse that he knows is there.

Elmont has been concerned they’d make a laughing stock out of the boy, one way or another. That he will be chagrined—if not by their snubbing of his heritage, then by witnessing others vie for Isabelle’s hand when it was supposed to be his story. But he is wrong, and Jack acts worthy of their respect—which in its own way scares Elmont even _more_. There’s a filigree balance, he knows, to protecting the mercy in one’s heart, the kindness towards people who are _worth_ it, and at the same time building a stonewall shield safeguarding these qualities from being used against oneself. A balance to letting the plates of black and silver become a part of one’s body, like he has done. And it worries him that Jack has not found that balance and has been reshaped.

And every time tonight that Elmont tries to unobtrusively study Jack, diverting his eyes to him for brief moments, he finds Jack staring right back. The coincidence is unsettling; that it can be anything but is unthinkable, the possibility of the boy finding him of more interest than Isabelle’s suit being exceedingly unlikely. Incidentally, after dancing with all her suitors as is proper the young Queen seems to have disappeared as the festivities grew more raucous.

Wondering if she might need familiar company in her escape into solitude, Elmont slips out of the hall, unnoticed by any. His search takes him in the direction of the orchard, where he believes she’ll be, for he knows her well. He is startled by a sound of shattering glass from outside and quickens his step.

“Isabelle? What is—” he stops abruptly.

She is not alone in the courtyard. One of the delegates is here with her, Lord Heinrich of Lankhmar. Isabelle turns to face Elmont abruptly, an expression of comical alarm on her face. Her arms are folded behind her back conspicuously, and although her puffed dress conceals her hands, the sight of the broken window lets him know well enough that she’s hiding her bow from him. Seeing the realization settle in his amused expression, she flushes rose and bites her lower lip to keep herself from giggling.

Not regal, then, he decides with a sharp twinge in his chest. _Too young_. The sight of her, at fault in another mischief, brings into focus the memories of all the times he had to stop her from getting into trouble, nursed her scraped knees, cleaned up what she left in disarray, both of them usually laughing hysterically by the end of it. Meeting her glinting eyes, he knows she is thinking the same. And that he isn’t likely to do any of that ever again.

In that moment, like never before nor again, he feels as much as her parent as he can be allowed to.

“Your Majesty,” he says softly, bowing to her respectfully. She curtseys back at him, with the same melancholy understanding shining in her eyes when she straightens.

Without further ado, he takes his leave of them. With any luck, this young lord will be the one to share in her mischievous side, to know every aspect of her. And that is all Elmont can wish for her.

He is startled when Jack’s figure unexpectedly arises before him. Jack comes to a staggering halt as well. “I was wondering where you’d gone,” Jack tells him timidly. And perhaps he’s been watching Elmont after all.

“Checking on Isabelle,” he murmurs.

“Where is she?”

Elmont looks back over his shoulder, thoughtfully probing the words on his tongue, as the still sound so odd to him. “Entertaining a _suitor_. Lord Heinrich.” He wonders briefly what effect the news will have on Jack.

“Ah, I’ve spoken to him. He prefers to go by Henry,” Jack replies unperturbed. “Seems like a nice fellow, loose enough that she might like him.”

Elmont has no words to offer in return and watches Jack suspiciously. He doesn’t quite believe that he is so content with her marriage. Jack notices his staring and cannot decipher it, but he smiles at him warmly, with amiable concern. “You look like the celebration has exhausted your tolerance for court,” he says. “You want to get out of here?”

Elmont snorts, taken aback, as his mind unhelpfully fills in the blanks of Jack’s suggestion. He looks at Jack, and the boy is smiling, hopeful and fond, and they are standing too close. Elmont makes himself look away. “You seemed to be enjoying yourself.”

Jack’s face falls into a grimace of aggravation. “You must be _joking_ ,” he groans, sounding abhorred at the idea. “Talking with strangers makes me more anxious than jousting tournaments. And manoeuvring nobles is a torture. I’d rather slay more giants. Can we please leave and go back to the Company’s quarters?”

Elmont has to laugh at his obvious misery, and it makes him feel significantly better to know that appearances be what they are, but Jack isn’t planning on changing from the Farmboy Knight that he is. And that is how Elmont prefers him.

 

***

 

_When he is still a Lieutenant, he strikes a friendship with a fellow Knight, a young man named Connor. There is an imperial aspect to his face, a thought-consuming power that makes Elmont’s mind thirst for him. He has a chiselled quality to the way his face is shaped that would have lend him a marble-like façade, expect in his manners he is anything but stone-like. He has a rakish smile, keeps his face unkempt, unshaven, and there is a jaunty glint to his eyes that Elmont is mesmerized by._

_He indulges in all his whims, the more dangerous the better, and it is his wanton unrestraint that finds the two of them, having just returned from a long sweaty ride—a petty crime in a small nearby village resolved, and they leave the culprit with the slow-moving caravan and ride ahead, boisterous, running their horses into the city in a frenzied competition, and they stumble into the empty barracks, drenched in sweat and laughing like they’re drunk, and back then Elmont isn’t sure how it happens, they just slam mouths together and spring apart, momentarily shocked, before grabbing at each other once more and tumbling into a nearby cot, tugging each other’s shirts and hoses loose._

_It is not long before Elmont has his hand wrapped around the other man’s cock. Their wet temples are touching, rubbing their perspiration against each other, and Elmont is heating Connor’s cheek with his breath, and the other man’s hands are clawing at the bed sheets and at Elmont’s torso, as Elmont is working him, slowly, carefully, drinking in every shudder and groan that answers him. He cradles Connor’s head with his hand, then drags his fingers across his jawline, presses a thumb to his lips and Connor’s tongue flicks against it, a gesture that almost makes Elmont explode. He is a man of rare treasured touches. He has known Connor to entertain the company of whores, and as such he enjoys sensual embraces oft enough. Elmont, who doesn’t find the idea of coupling with a woman even remotely arousing, doesn’t share this luxury. All he has… is this. A touch of a lover that is almost stolen, always hidden, never openly desired._

_After he is spent, and Elmont’s hand is moist with his semen, Connor is quick to extract himself and covers his arse up like they haven’t just been pressed to one other. He walks over to a water basin, wets a towel and cleans himself up before quickly donning back his trousers and shirt, trying to arrange himself into some semblance of neatness. Elmont watches his ministrations, half-seating half-lying on the bed, and remains unmoving._

_After Connor is once again presentable, he pauses, half-turning his face in Elmont’s direction. Elmont is expecting nothing, possessing a singular lucidity in predicting how this shall play out. In the end, Connor finds no words for him, neither a warning to be discreet, nor an embarrassed thank you, nor even an insult. He retreats in silence, and Elmont sinks further back into the bed, stomach knotting because his expectation has been fully met, as disheartening as it is._

_He shall never again attempt an indiscretion with a fellow knight in such a manner, taking from this experience that the sated feeling of a body pales in comparison with the utter lack of emotional satisfaction. But what he shall remember most vividly from that encounter will be the seasick feeling of a friendship sliding irrevocably into ruination. Connor will never laugh with him like before, never put his arm easily on his shoulder for fear of it meaning something else. Connor will take a wife in another city and move there so that she may remain close to her parents, astounding her with his generosity._

_And Elmont will be left alone once again, and he shall be finally resigned to the realization that this is his future: to steal a lover’s touch like scrapes from a table._

 

***

 

Jack’s father, he learns, was not always a farmer. Influenza—the same that took away Elmont’s mother—ruined what business he had in the city and he retreated into the village and eventually married, in poverty but for love. Still, he was a man learned enough that he taught his son arithmetic and writing.

Elmont doesn’t deem himself to be a good tutor. But he finds that Jack’s experience with lessons is limited to his father, a man who coddled him, and his uncle, who saw in him only a burden to get rid of. Elmont can only strive to be better than both of these men.

Their relationship reshapes itself to common ground. He is not an idea of a knight in Jack’s eyes any longer, but a man of flesh and bones, and of as much faults and edges as everyone else. What he doesn’t realize is that he is Jack’s hero **_still_**.

What he does know is the pleasure of a restful evening, after their duties for the day are done and they are blessedly not bruised nor bleeding. The giants coupled with Roderick dwindled the number of knights down to less than a half, and Jack is quick to take his place alongside of Elmont to recruit and train more men. At the end of the day, it delivers them into a separate tier altogether. At times it is shared by other surviving veterans. Other times it is just the pair of them, and Elmont is content to have it that way. An abiding friendship, much like what he used to share with Crawe, except it’s not, for there’s still the _‘other thing’_ Elmont continues to shy away from. (Jack is soaking his feet in a trough of water, face turned to the setting sun with a pleasant smile. Elmont drinks his ale and watches Jack, letting his eyes roam over his aspect, and does nothing about it.)

To many people now Jack appears as Eric Reborn, and there is an overabundance of love to his person that he finds embarrassing. There’s nothing wrong with it, he supposes, but he confesses to finding it hard to consider loving anyone back who only puts him on a pedestal and worships a fantasy. However, sooner or later, he is bound to find a lady worthy of his conduct. It is only a matter of time.

In this mayhem, Elmont is but one person. What is worse, _a friend_. If he respected Jack less, if he _feared_ less what it could do to their friendship, he might have acted upon it. Indulged in a desire were it simple. But Elmont cannot boast having a lot of friends. As such, Jack is just too precious a piece in his life to risk the loss of what they have. He has made that mistake enough times in his life.

 

 

 

 

#  **~IV~**

 

“How soon will you be riding out?” Lord Heinrich asks him. His throne seats next to Isabelle’s, and it is a sight Elmont is still unused to.

“Before first light in the morrow, You Highness,” he says politely, conversationally, like the matter is not at all dire. Isabelle smiles at him gratefully: the way he spoke like that, confident and bold, always made her feel safe. He still can, in ways her husband can’t, but Elmont supposes it isn’t proper for him to feel so possessive.

In the absence of her father it is he who removed the bride’s cloak from her shoulders, took her hand and put it into another’s, and her safety and happiness along with it. She is no longer a child, not his charge. She is his Queen. And Heinrich is a good man. He will learn to be a good husband in due time.

“Please, do be safe,” Isabelle beseeches him. “It was a near thing last time around.”

The sound of commotion outside comes unexpected, jaggedly loud. Her face pinches and she clutches her husband’s hand with her dainty gloved one. Elmont follows the gesture with stifled resentment—it used to be that she clutched their hands, his and Jack’s for comfort, and now she has no need for them, finding solace in another. He shouldn’t be bitter, but she was like a child-sister for him for too long, and he cannot help but dread loneliness.

Isabelle’s other hand is resting around her belly protectively. She is not yet showing, but he knows it has been two months. A goblet has fallen from her hand when she startled, and a made scurries to pick it up and wipe the offending spill, not that her Queen notices. She looks to the window worriedly. Trouble brews to the north that is not unlike one that has once descended upon them from Gantua, and the court’s mood is sombre.

“Knight-Captain?” a voice beckons him from the door. It’s Jack. He gives Isabelle a proper bow as she is due, but when their eyes meet briefly, he remains her friend still, dear to her heart and more like a sibling than in the first months that she knew him.

His eyes find Elmont and with a tilt of his chin he instructs him to follow. He is no boy any longer but a young man, and when did that happen? His muscles have grown into his height, and there is a sobriety to his face that wasn’t there before, even if in his heart he is still the same dreamer.

Excusing himself, Elmont makes his way to Jack and thinks that perhaps giving up Isabelle’s close confidence wouldn’t be such a hardship. Perhaps Jack’s companionship would be enough. _Almost_ enough—just enough as to not feel desolate.

Tomorrow at dawn they ride to face all new perils. Somewhere above the northern ridges there spreads its wings a great dragon.

 

***

 

_It is a farcical situation to be prepared as someone’s meal, undignified, lying among pigs. This is how you’ll die, he thinks, pitifully and ignominiously, like the vile thing your father has always said you were. It is like a terrible nightmare from childhood—the one where you have a terrible weight crushing your chest and you cannot move, cannot wake, do not know if this be dream or hell. He is trapped in the ooze that is their food, the sludge trapping his arms, and the weight on his sternum is something terrible. His skin is prickling with the closeness of the fire._

_A year later, he will wake in cold sweat, thinking he is about to be consumed by those fires still._

_“I had it!” he tells Jack, because beyond the fear the situation is so outrageous it shames him._

_“Have you ever killed a Giant?” Jack will respond in kind a short while late, with the bravado he equally doesn’t mean._

_When they reach the brim of the woods, Jack collapses against the nearest boulder—probably a pebble to a giant’s eye too, Elmont ponders wryly. Jack leans against it and bends in two, his frame shaking nervously which he tries to conceal, because he has just killed something that could have surely crushed the three of them, and the terror is making him sick to his stomach._

_Elmont doesn’t think when he reaches out and rests his hand on Jack’s knee as a measure of small comfort. It is instinctive camaraderie, the same he would have given to any squire under his command, except Jack isn’t under it. He means it as a brief gesture, but Jack clutches at his wrist in response, as openly and gladly as he does everything else. Elmont startles and looks at their hands, having not expected it, and thinks he should pull away; he’s guarding his touches quite steeply. Instead he turns his hand and catches the boy’s fingers with his own. Jack squeezes them lightly with relief, and Elmont returns the touch, and finds it easy and non-threatening and firm._

 

***

 

The camp has been set at the foot of the mountain. Jack and Elmont have a small company of men under their command, and Elmont wonders sombrely how many of them will be coming back. In a tent, for three nights now the two of them have been pouring over spread-out maps together, drawing up strategies of how best to deduce wherever it is the beast is nesting, then riding out with scout parties with first light and crossing out dead ends again at dawn.

Elmont thumbs the soft worn corner of the map with a faint smile: he remembers it well—he has bought it for Isabelle. She used to be fascinated with maps, studying them hungrily and pretending to draw up roots of her escape from Cloister. She lends it to him now with a promise that he will get it safely back to her.

Jack is leaning forward beside him, his chin almost resting on Elmont’s shoulder as he is sharing his view of the map, carefully planning the impeding battle. The candles gutter around them.

“These parts,” Elmont traces a ridge of mountains, “are all cavernous labyrinths. We’d do best to go across.”

“Unless a cavern is exactly where the beast is nesting,” Jack counters, his gaze fastened on the imaginary contours of the country rolled up before them. When drawn, mountains look so unintimidating and easy to overcome. “I suppose we could draw it out instead. Choose a canyon with a choke point, box it in.”

His fingers travel across the skin of the map in a manner that makes Elmont’s mouth run dry. Perhaps it is the forced intimacy of this room, the low light from the candles, and that the map forces them to stand pressed together, but he cannot help imagining Jack’s fingers mapping his own skin in a similar manner.

As if reaching inside his thoughts, Jack’s hand comes up to rest at the small of his back, settling there like it’s natural. Jack doesn’t seem aware that he’s even done it. His free hand continues travelling across the mountains on the map.

“Of course, the beast does fly. We will have to set up archers, maybe roll up boulders on higher ground for lack of an onager, then let them fall and crush its wings.”

Elmont hums and finds himself barely listening. Jack slowly drags his hand up his spine until it stops at the nape of Elmont’s neck. His thumb is kneading the knot at the base of it absently, rhythmically. Elmont is frozen, everything around him pulled into sharp perspective by the weight of Jack’s hand. He attempts to shift his weight, praying that Jack should drop it or just _do_ something that isn’t so maddeningly inconsequential, but his palm seems glued to Elmont’s tunic, and it is _burning,_ he doesn’t know how Jack cannot feel the burning.

He exhales shudderingly against a stifled moan curling on his tongue. “Jack, what are you _doing?_ ” he demands, and his voice, suddenly hoarse, comes out harsher than expected. Jack’s hand disappears in an instant, and Elmont turns abruptly, feeling anger rising in him, and suddenly they are almost nose to nose, except he has to throw his head back to actually meet Jack’s eyes, which serves to annoy him even more.

Staring at Jack makes his stomach clench in tight fear, cold and sticky, panicked. Jack’s face is unshaven, sun-soaked, jaggedly uneven, and Elmont has committed to memory every sharp angle of his cheekbones, the lines of his jawline, the slope of his nose, the fervid shine of his eyes. But right now—and maybe the candles are to blame for it once again, and maybe it’s Elmont himself—his face looks different and unknown to him, and it pushes at whatever resolve Elmont has in regards to this.

He is aware that he’s staring, for reasons he is unable to defend to himself, but what he doesn’t know is why Jack holds his gaze with the same terrified trapped fear. He is sure he is imagining it, but it almost seems like Jack is the one leaning in, and Elmont feels lost and useless, so wrapped up in his self-denial he has never considered what he would do if Jack were the one to act first. Because Jack shouldn’t be acting on anything, he isn’t _like_ that, this is _madness_.

Jack mouth misses his by mere inches, as he suddenly bends his head and almost crumbles, clutching at the front of Elmont’s shirt. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, and Elmont rarely loses his calm, but he’s about to fly into blind fury because he hasn’t _asked_ for this, he has kept himself within borders and he cannot bear this rattling and redefining that promises nothing good.

Jack steps away from him, from the table that he has all but pushed Elmont against, and his next words drain all the anger out of him. “I don’t know what’s… _wrong_ with me.”

Elmont stares at him, head empty of words. There is nothing he can think of saying that isn’t _useless_. This is something to be spoken at length about, or never spoken about at all, and before Elmont can make up his mind there is terrible sound outside their tent. The dragon doesn’t wait for them to make plans in regards to itself and rises above their encampment.

 

***

 

_On one occasion Elmont finds himself returning to the barracks, nursing bruised ribs, blood swelling on a split lip and on a tear on his shoulder. The rooms are empty except for Crawe who rises to help him in, torn between anger and concern._

_“What happened?” he demands, cleaning Elmont’s face with water._

_Elmont hisses, trying to sprawl himself in a chair in a least painful pose. “A chance meeting with Padriac,” he says. “I’m sorry, Lord_ Harrowfield _, now.” His fists crumple the fabric of the chair._

_“What happened?” Crawe says in a tone that implies his readiness to go out there and finish mugging the prick._

_“Let’s just say Lady Harrowfield isn’t too pleased to have made my acquaintance,” Elmont says dryly._

_“Oh.” Crawe seems to understand. “She found out that you and her husband?—” he trails off suggestively._

_“Actually, no,” Elmont’s tone hovers in between nonchalance and annoyance. “I approached him to be cordial, because we_ were _friends at one point. And he called me a filthy bugger. Naturally, I had to defend my honour.”_

_“And?” Crawe prompts._

_“And that’s why she isn’t at all pleased to have made my acquaintance,” he finishes dryly, with a hollow lack of any true amusement. “I think I broke Lord Harrowfield’s pretty face.”_

_Crawe guffaws, relieved that his friend’s honour is defended, and proceeds to tease him that he used to like that pretty face. And Elmont allows himself to smile languidly, because it is good to have a friend who doesn’t give a rat’s ass if Elmont is indeed a filthy bugger._

_But his smile is somewhat plastered and doesn’t come from his heart which sits heavy in his chest, and his thoughts are dark. He was furious with his friend—a role he will fulfil no longer after today—wanted to hurt him, to hit him._

You have shared my bed, _he wanted to scream at him, as the man was lying prostrate at his feet, defeated and shamed._ Put your hands on my body. I have turned onto my **_stomach_** for you. Those things all happened, you cannot hide from them, nor hide _them_ from anyone, least of all me.

_But it shall be kept hidden. Always in shadows, always in shame, no one wanting this lot for himself in life. Elmont is learning to accept that love is a dream that someone like him is just not meant to have._

 

***

 

Elmont wakes up with a low moan, like a taut string, and his body feels on fire.

“Jack?” is the first thing he whispers, squinting into the dark, before realizing that he’s back at the castle, in the healer’s quarters, and Jack is hardly to be expected to be around.

“I’m here,” the familiar voice echoes all the same, and he feels his strong fingers squeezing his hand. Slowly, he begins to see the room more clearly. It is evening, and he must have been out for a while.

“What happened?” he croaks.

“We fought a dragon,” Jack responds with affected merriment that doesn’t quite mirror in his face. “The beast is dead. But for a while there, nearly so were you.”

“The physician says it looks worse than it is,” another voice interrupts. Isabelle, sounding upset at Jack’s words. “Are you in much pain?” he feels her soft fingers touch his shoulder.

As he is battling the tiredness, the burning he has woken up to feels less acute. “I will be fine,” he shakes his head. “As always, Your Majesty.”

“Oh _please_ ,” she echoes, aggravated.

“Isabelle,” he yields to her with a chuckle. “Clearly, that is divine punishment for all the scares you’ve given me over the years.”

She smiles ruefully, and now he can clearly make out her face and weakly answers her with a smile of his own.

Her eyes drop down, then return to search his face with an expression of cautious mischief. Looking down he realizes that Jack is still holding onto his hand. Elmont is instantly awash in cold sweat and isn’t sure if he’s whitening or flushing. He tries extricating his hand to escape the unreality of what Isabelle thinks it means, but fails. Jack’s fingers tighten around his wrist, even as his expression remains stubbornly neutral. He isn’t even look at Elmont, prompting him to wonder if that’s not some kind of punishment for himself.

“You should rest,” Isabelle tells him. “And heal fast, and that’s an order.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he responds wryly, his eyelids drooping again. He isn’t consciously aware when she leaves.

His mind travels back past the actual battle to those moments of crackling tension in the tent. He cannot help wondering if Jack will ever look at him again like everything is normal. If he will bear it, because everything is _not_. Wondering why Jack is sitting here at all if he cannot bring himself to look at Elmont.

He can already see the solid of their trust becoming brittle and cracking. The wound, he remembers well, is his own fault. In battle him and Jack are perfectly matched, feeling each other move around the landscape and watching each other back, and it is a quicker, surer way to fight, secure in the knowledge that someone is looking out for you.

That hasn’t happened tonight. Tonight Elmont hasn’t trusted Jack to watch his back at all, was sure that he wouldn’t. Friendships are unmade in the light of certain revelations, and he has seen them sink first-hand so that he expects it all to be gone. He fights the dragon in a state of constant panic, like he’s fighting him all alone, no one at his back. He overreaches, cannot spread the net of his attention wide enough, and gets hurt in the process. It’s a small miracle he’s the one who got hurt and not Jack, who could have suffered as easily the consequences of Elmont’s inner doubt. He doesn’t know what he would have done then.

 

***

 

_When he is still a young boy, and his friends start talking of girls, he engages in these discussions readily enough. When his first love proves to be not a maid but one of those same friends instead, Elmont’s gaze being drawn somewhere different entirely, he seeks shelter from his thoughts in the Church and prays for the forgiveness of his soul._

_When he is a grown man, sometimes when he is pressing a cloth of water to his face after a hard and heated day’s work, Elmont imagines himself back at Church, the streams running down his head being the waters of ablution._

_‘I will wash mine hands in innocency: so will I compass thine altar, O Lord. Redeem me, and be merciful unto me.’_

 

***

 

He is standing in his quarters in front of a mirror, watching the bandage around his right upper arm and contemplating glumly how many more times the fire will try to kill him. There is a knock on his door, shaky and urgent.

“Just a moment,” he says, grabbing his shirt and tossing it back on. The door opens, letting the intruder in. “I said—” _just a moment,_ he means to say, turning to face the door, and stops, his mouth closing around whatever words he means to say. It’s Jack. Of course it is. Who else is there that he knows is impertinent enough to be unable to wait even a moment when anxious? The Queen, he supposes, because she is entitled, but she would boggle at the very idea.

Jack stops at the door and stares at him, like he has forgotten why he came. “Yes?” Elmont reminds him impatiently, when he continues to say nothing.

Jack stares at his bandaged arm and at the fresh cloth and a jar of poultice laid out to change it. “Need help?” he asks.

“I’ll manage,” he responds stiffly, shrugging the shirt from his shoulders again and turning to the mirror.

Jack starts pacing the room, and Elmont turns the mirror so that he can covertly watch him. Eventually, he strips the bandages of his arm, exposing a raw unattractive erosion of burnt skin. A swift glance into the mirror tells him that Jack has stopped pacing and watches him with an expression Elmont isn’t sure he has ever seen on him before. Perhaps it is the way Jack looks at him when Elmont isn’t watching—God knows he’s stolen a lot of secret glances himself.

Casting his eyes down, Elmont cleans the wound and applies whatever soothing herbal balm the physician has concocted for him, but when it comes to wrapping, he is hard pressed to do it all with one hand. Jack watches his fumbling for a brief while before starting to him impatiently.

“Let me do this,” he says, snatching the bandages out of his hands, and his voice is annoyed for whatever reason.

“Don’t be ridiculous—”

“It’ll be faster,” Jack says curtly in a tone that tells Elmont not to argue, so he doesn’t. He’s too exhausted for an inane debate anyway. He sits back and finds himself suddenly an inert observer to his own life, watching Jack taking over the remains of it completely. “There,” the young man announces, fastening the bandages around his arm and making a tight knot.

Elmont looks at it and thinks he should say thank you. “You have come for a reason?” he reminds Jack instead and catches his eyes in the mirror before turning to look at his face.

“Yes,” Jack says, and then doesn’t talk for a long while. In his face Elmont reads that the conversation will be about _that night_. It makes the breath hitch in Elmont’s chest as he can palpably sense the wrecking of his friendship. He ponders in shame if the trust they place in each other can yet be salvaged.

“It’s like—” Jack attempts to begin and purses his lips, then tries again, many times over. “You know—Just—I—” he rakes his palm over his mouth in frustration, then chuckles at his own inarticulacy.

In spite of everything Elmont feels a surge of warm exasperation. He has known Jack for a year now, and in this year he has grown from a boy into a man. There is a shallow growth of a first beard on his chin, and he is more road-worn and sturdy, and already he shares Elmont’s sardonic predisposition. But behind this new skin there is still that same awkward boy, who is determined and lacking confidence all at once. Jack’s face is tense around all the thoughts wanting to escape, to be blurted out, except he can’t find words for them.

“I cannot help you say what you came here to say,” Elmont tells him. “I don’t know what you’re even trying to tell me.”

“That’s the thing,” Jack finally musters his first sentence in several minutes. “That _is_ what you do, you help me. This whole time that I’ve been at court, if I made mistakes, if I didn’t understand something, you’d teach me. You’d _guide_ me.”

“I suppose,” Elmont agrees, steeling himself for implied accusations of a trust betrayed.

“So, that thing? That night? See, I thought you’d—I mean if you wanted—and because you didn’t—I just assumed you didn’t—that I wasn’t—I mean I’m not a total idiot!” Jack stares up at him defensively, and Elmont has only a vague idea of what Jack has tried to infer with his broken sentences. “I sort of knew, or I guessed. From Isabelle, when she insinuated, you remember? That you… much prefers the ladies’ part? But I get it now, though.”

What are you on about, Jack? he asks, or means to, but his throat feels as rough as sandpaper, and Jack is talking again before Elmont can interrupt.

“I mean I _hope_ I get it—that this—I don’t want to _ruin_ this—” which is good news, at least. “I should just shut upnowprobablyyes,” he says, garbling up the last words into a mess of them. It doesn’t matter, as he stiffly raises a hand and places it on Elmont’s neck, awkward and unsure; and leans in, slow and unsure; stealing unsure glances at Elmont all the way in like he’s expecting a rebuke. It’s happening, here and now, and Elmont is terrified.

At the last moment he bends his chin down, finally finding the voice to speak, and Jack’s painfully stretched-out leaning in disappears as he recoils like from a burn. “God, I’m sorry,” he blurts out. “I thought—I thought—” There’s a pleading gasping undertone to his voice.

“Jack.” Elmont catches him by the wrist before he has a mind to apologize any further. “I just want to know why? Is it that you think that you owe me something?” Jack looks even more horrified, and Elmont quickly tells him, “Because I don’t need you doing this just because it’s something I want.”

There’s a sharp intake of breath on his part as he realizes that he has inadvertently admitted to his desire. No forgetting about it now. Jack’s face warms with something close to relief as he twists his hand so that he can interlace their fingers. “That’s what I’m saying, Elmont,” he appears to find his voice too, repairing his broken sentences into coherence. “I get it now.” He leans forward and settles his forehead against Elmont’s shoulder, finding it easier to speak with his face hidden away. “I was waiting for your advances, like with everything. For you to take my hand and lead me places, quite literally I’m afraid. For you to tell me that I can, that it’s allowed. But this once you needed it to be my choice.” Jack unburies his face from his shoulder and brings it impossibly close to him, breathing into his mouth, “It _is_ …” before kissing him.

With a groan of utter surrender, Elmont opens up to him, allows himself to be pulled into the heat of it, feels Jack’s arms wreathing about him. He has no self-restraint to stop this, even though he suspects that he should: no good has ever come out of him crossing this boundary with any of his friends—who were all equally willing, before abandoning him forevermore.

 _Stop this,_ he thinks pleadingly, flattening his palms against the expanse of Jack’s chest. _This will surely ruin us._

 

 

 

 

 _“Some, who can sneer at friendship’s ties,_  
_Have, for my weakness, oft reprov’d me;_  
_Yet still the simple gift I prize,_  
_For I am sure, the giver **lov’d** me._  
_He offered it with downcast look,_  
_As **fearful** that I might refuse it;_  
_I told him when the gift I took,_  
_My **only fear** should be, to lose it.”_  
—from **The Cornelian** , by Lord Byron

 

#  **~V~**

 

 _“And so returned the giant hoards,  
The stalks cut down with giant swords.  
The King struck down the law that read:  
A Princess must a noble wed—  
Then, such a wedding not seen since,  
_ Of a princess and her farmboy prince.”

Jack closes the book and looks at the children indulgently. He has read the story to them many times, but they are yet to grow tired. In fact, they keep coming up with new adventures, and the three of them have a little book to fill with their own stories.

“You skipped a part!” Anna chides him indignantly. “What happened in between?”

The question leaves Jack momentarily sweating: the ending has always met their most ardent objections. He has spent many pages reinventing it in poor rhyme for the young princess, starting with the fact that a story where the hero doesn’t get the girl is not worth her little seven-year-old ears.

“Well, we courted for a bit—” he mutters helplessly and is quickly interrupted by her brother.

“That’s not it! What happened to the Crown?”

“Ah!” Jack smiles in relief because that part is much easier—even if he hasn’t rhymed it for them yet.

Tales do not always tell the whole story. Sometimes they are what the people want them to be.

Tales told to children are rarely unabridged truths, and with Isabelle’s offspring they are _always_ what _they_ want them to be.

So when Jack entertains them, he doesn’t explain how it is to see a friend’s head being torn off and chewed on by giant’s teeth. He simply says, _‘the hero married the princess’_. And because they are children they never ask where she is.

The truth is slightly more complicated than that.

 

***

 

_Elmont has known Jack a defenceless farm boy. A malleable student, a metal-clad knight, a brother-in-arms. He knows strong back and solid muscles but pressing against him Jack is gentle and soft._

_“I—ah—” Elmont doesn’t quite know where to put his hands to stall Jack’s demanding leading. “It’s—Jack, have you ever—” He tries talking, but every time Jack’s mouth is on his, he cannot resist being stolen into another breathless kiss._

_“I haven’t,” Jack replies in between, and then stops and looks at Elmont seriously, fingers raking through his hair. “Ever.”_

_Elmont is helpless against his desire to kiss the words from his mouth, wanting to let him know how it doesn’t escape him, the level of trust Jack is putting in him. But all the words are gone for him. He is deliriously empty._

_“So tell me,” Jack asks, kissing his jaw, “what do you want?”_

_Elmont has no easy answer to that. He knows exactly what he wants, except the truth of it is suddenly too shaming. There is a reason his previous lovers went on marrying women quite happily and he never will. (A reason, he suspects, Jack shall do so as well.) It has never mattered much beyond the question of pleasure to be playing hind to others, but the emasculating wrongness of it makes his tongue stuck to his palate now._

_“There are things—certain things—” he groans, bringing their foreheads together. “I am not a giver,” he says helplessly._

_“Is my bout of ineloquence contagious?” Jack teases him._

_“Shut it, you fool,” Elmont rolls his eyes with a wry smile, and feels Jack chuckle. “There are roles in these things,” he says finally. “And I—”_

_Realization dawns on Jack’s face, as he recalls his earlier words, meeting his eyes with a frightening tenderness. “You much prefer the ladies’ part.”_

_Elmont chuckles mirthlessly. “I suppose that’s one way of putting it.” He wonders if he will ever escape this particular double-entendre now._

_“Hey,” Jack catches his face with both hands unexpectedly. “It’s fine. You don’t need to be_ careful _around me all of a sudden. If that’s who you are, then it is perfect to me.” He takes Elmont’s chin and kisses him again, like he wants to burn away everything Elmont has every pretended to be—and he might just succeed._

_Jack doesn’t relinquish his lead, and Elmont doesn’t particularly want him to, allowing Jack to slide off of them one item of clothing after another. It is a luxury he hasn’t always got from his lovers either, and he revels in the chance to let his fingers travel across Jack’s torso, trail the faint line of hair running down his abdomen and under the hem of his pants. Jack, in turn, seems intent on putting his mouth on every inch of Elmont’s body, leaving dry kisses on his shoulders, his wrists, his collarbone, his throat, all the way undressing the both of them, until Elmont feels the skin of his legs against his own, rubbing their calves together experimentally._

_He turns onto his stomach without coaxing, forehead pressing into the pillow, and he is prepared to bite down should the intrusion become painful. He hasn’t done this in a while. Jack’s hands are mapping out his torso, stroking down his shoulder blades, his ribs, reaching to his abdomen._

_“Are you ready?” he whispers, bending his mouth to his left ear—and Elmont can turn his head and their lips will meet because Jack is so tall._

_“Yes,” he breathes and takes the opportunity to turn his head and look at him._

_Jack’s hands rest firmly on his hips as he starts easing in, and he remains bent closely so that his chest is nearly touching Elmont’s back, which by itself almost makes him whimper. Only enveloped tightly in a lover’s embrace does he feel complete._

_“I can’t,” Jack exhales unexpectedly, starting to hesitate. “I fear I might hurt you.”_

_“No, keep going,” Elmont almost begs—no, not almost, **does** beg, and crushes Jack’s palm resting near his head with his hand. “Please.”_

_And Jack does, he sinks deeper, and surrounds him, his stomach pressing flat to the small of his back, arms spreading over Elmont’s arms, and they are in perfect symmetry for a brief moment, Jack’s face hovering above his cheek, their breaths almost mingling._

_And as Jack starts moving, it’s like nothing Elmont’s ever known. Jack keeps his mouth close to Elmont’s earlobe, and he keeps asking intermittently, “Is this good?” Like he doesn’t trust that Elmont’s enjoying himself, only it’s not that, better than that—he wants to make sure. His hands keep trailing over Elmont’s back, slick with sweat now, in a gentle caress, and the tenderness of it makes him ebb between want and sweet devastation._

_Everything about this takes him off guard, because in his mind there are certain expectations of what sex is supposed to be—quick and rough and glorious and sating. Greedy, desperate, secretive. But Jack puts his mouth onto his shoulder and kisses him, and trails a pattern to the knot between his shoulder blades. There is nothing fumbling or panicked about it; Jack **considers** him. _

_Jack’s hand slides under his abdomen to take hold of Elmont’s arousal, and he arches into Jack, his breaths shallow now. Jack’s hand on his cock is slow, his movements delicate and assured, and Elmont’s hips lift to meet every push, to match every brush against his cock._

_They are nearly in unison, if the jerks of Jack’s hips are any indication, and his strokes become rougher, more insistent, and stifled moans are grating Elmont’s throat. Before long, he is spent, and Jack moves out of him and lets himself spill onto the sheets as well, crashing back onto Elmont’s prone form almost immediately. One of his arms is resting across Elmont’s torso, and their legs are intertwined, and it’s an odd thing to be saying but it also makes perfect sense to him to say, and he can’t help it, needs to let it out. He murmurs, “Thank you.” Jack says nothing, merely hums lazily, and his palm travels across Elmont’s back._

_Lying face first into the pillow Elmont cannot bring himself to turn his head and look at Jack, to take in his languid form after making love, to dare touch him, knowing all the while he will not stay. It takes only a short time before the bed dips, the hand lying possessively across his back disappearing, and Jack crawls over Elmont’s limbs, getting out of the bed. He stands, stark naked, and Elmont turns his head, watching him subtly in resignation. He knew this was coming._

_Jack looks around searchingly. “Where do you have water?” he asks, catching Elmont’s unblinking stare._

_Yes. Naturally. The ever present ritual of erasing all traces. Elmont sighs and points towards a pitcher. Jack smiles and takes it, watering a clean cloth and wiping the seed from his skin. When he turns, Elmont is expecting him to leave. What he’s not expecting is for Jack to return to his bed with the pitcher and the cloth, water it again, and start bathing him as well._

_“What are you doing?” his breath hitches, but Jack’s hand between his shoulders pushes him down insistently. Jack lets the cloth wash the small of his back, his thighs, his rear, then asks him to turn and proceeds with his ministrations, and Elmont cannot quite stop looking at his hands. No one has ever done this for him either, and it’s a simple gesture, but it’s also water, cleansing water, and there seems to be something almost mystical in that._

_When Jack is done, he drops the cloth by the foot of the bed and crawls back to lie next to Elmont, pulling the sheets over them. For a moment it makes Elmont freeze with indecision, choking on the fact of a lover choosing to stay rather than leave. Almost like what they’re doing can last, can matter._

_Jack seems to sense him tensing, as he props himself up on one elbow and regards him with sudden hesitation. “Should I have not—I mean, do you expect me to—Should I—leave?”_

_“No!” Elmont echoes instantly. “I just… did not expect it, is all.”_

_Jack settles back, his hand resting across Elmont’s chest. “Bad ‘did not expect’?” he wonders._

_“Bad that I didn’t expect,” Elmont responds ruefully and looks at Jack who seems to understand perfectly. He leans forward from his position and presses a kiss onto the corner of Elmont’s mouth._

_And Elmont thinks he should stop being so surprised at everything. That Jack, too, might expect this to matter._

_One of them is a Giant Slayer, a lowborn from the farmlands, a newly made Lord Provost. The other is a Guaridan, the Knight-Captain of the King’s Company and the Queen’s Protector. They are a thousand different things, all these different people, different duties, varying expectations. They were not meant to meet, except inexplicably they have, and they face the life abreast. To one another they are each but a man. A comrade, a best friend and finally a lover, the last layer flowing naturally out of everything else that they are, and why should it negate that they matter to one other, always have._

_As he closes his eyes that night, Jack’s face pressing into his side against all odds, Elmont allows himself to start shedding the fears left in him by a lifetime of disillusionment and lets Jack’s presence fill him with hope._

 

***

 

When Jack returns to his quarters in the castle, Elmont is standing by the bookshelves, perusing them leisurely. Jack crosses the room towards him and slides his arms around Elmont’s waist, fitting himself tightly against his back. Elmont sees him coming and stands very still, waiting for him to do all of these things with a small secret smile of pleasure. Jack kisses his exposed neck.

“Children go to sleep okay?” he asks. It is an unexpected, although a thoroughly welcome development that Isabelle allows them to tend to both of her children, trusting Jack and Elmont to treasure them just like Elmont used to treasure her. Sometimes the notion still floods him with bewildering relief.

Jack nods, and Elmont feels the movement with Jack still pressed up against his back rather than sees it. “What was the story tonight?”

“Mmhm, the old favourite,” he murmurs. “Jack and the princess defeating the giants, and so forth.”

Elmont exhales a short breath, like a laughter. “One day someone shall have to tell them who is the princess in that story.” His hand lands on the bookshelf invitingly.

Jack hums in an absent-minded agreement as he covers Elmont’s palm with his own, tracing his knuckles with his thumb. “Not just yet, though. They are so like their mother, and you know better than anyone how she used to get: once an idea is in their heads there’s nothing anyone can do to get it out of there.”

Elmont laughs, a little helplessly, and feels the tremble of Jack’s answering laughter travel through him.

“You’re going to stay up reading tonight?” Jack murmurs at his ear. “I am tired.”

“Go,” Elmont answers, finally stepping out of his embrace and facing him. “I’ll join you in a moment.”

“I look forward to it.”

Elmont watches Jack disappear into the adjoining room. Wonderful and completely unforeseen, it is his corner of life: where kin is a gift freely offered to you, and there are no shadows of the haunting past nor doubt, and no one is forlorn; where physical affection is not a rarity, a touch is not a theft, and rapture is not synonymous with sin or shame.

Elmont plucks a book without looking and heads into their bedroom. He doesn’t expect to be opening it tonight after all.


End file.
